March For Life On Washington: Trump Presidency Buoys Activists

SAINT PAUL, MN — In two marches this weekend in Saint Paul, activists took to the streets with polar opposite aims. On Saturday, the day after President Donald Trump was inaugurated, upwards of 100,000 protesters walked in solidarity with about 2 million others worldwide in support of rights they worry could be weakened or lost under his presidency. Their grievances spanned a wide spectrum, but a political agenda that could limit reproductive choice was one of the big ones.

A day later, as if on cue, a precipitously smaller but equally passionate crowd of about 5,000 punctuated those fears during Saint Paul's annual March for Life. Newly emboldened by Trump’s election and Republicans’ Congressional sweep, they see for the first time in decades a real shot at seeing abortion restricted, if not banned outright.

Pro-life activists are buoyed not only by the new president's avowed support of efforts to defund abortion provider Planned Parenthood, which gets $500,000 million, more than a third of its annual $1.3 billion budget, from the federal government, but also by how he may swing the Supreme Court to a pro-life majority. Trump will soon have his first chance to do that with a nominee to replace Justice Antonin Scalia, who died almost a year ago.

“A new day is dawning for the right-to-life movement in 2017,” Leo LaLonde, president of Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life, told the Minneapolis Star Tribune. “The 2016 election all across the nation has brought us new hope and new responsibility.”

The Saint Paul march, held annually on the 44th anniversary of the landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade that legalized abortion, was one of several rallies held around the country last weekend as a prelude to the national March for Life on Friday, Jan. 27, in Washington, D.C.

With a ideology shift favoring the pro-life camp’s agenda, the annual march from the National Mall to the U.S. Supreme Court steps has added significance this year. The list of speakers include White House senior adviser Kellyanne Conway and Republicans Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa, Rep. Mia B. Love of Utah and Rep. Christopher H. Smith of New Jersey.

• See Also: 90,000 to 100,000 in Saint Paul Join Women’s March

Saint Paul marcher Barb Truzinski, 68, told the Star Tribune she expects 2017 to be a pivotal year, with restrictions coming sooner rather than later.

“I think it’s going to happen quickly,” the Cleveland, Minnesota, woman said. “I think people at the top of the government mean it when they say they want this to happen.”

LeLonde, Truzinski and others have reason to be optimistic that the pro-life movement has moved from the margins to mainstream Republican politics.

On the fourth day of his presidency Monday, Trump signed an executive order reinstating the Mexico City Policy, which prevents the federal government from providing funds to foreign non-governmental organizations that perform or promote abortion services. It was first enacted by Ronald Reagan, rescinded by Bill Clinton, reinstated by George W. Bush and rescinded again by Barack Obama.

Trump’s order went a long way toward erasing some of the nagging doubts about his shifting views on abortion, both during the campaign and years before he announced his White House run.

In 1999, he said in an interview with NBC’s Tim Russert that he is “very pro-choice” but against abortion.

However, he explained in the first Republican debate in 2015 that his views on abortion changed when friends who had planned to terminate a pregnancy changed their minds. They “were going to have a child, and it was going to get aborted,” he said. “And that child today is a total superstar, a great, great child. And I saw that. And I saw other instances.”

Photo: Demonstrator in front of National Archives on Constitution Avenue during 2015 National March for Life, by Elvert Barnes/Flickr Commons